While reading the newspapers today I saw something which is really amusing.

DOOR IS ZIDANE SOUVENIR

Leipzig: The stadium door at Leipzig which French star Zinedine Zidane kicked in anger after being substituted during the 1-1 group draw with South Korea is to be kept in its damaged state as a souvenir.

"I initially was goin to ask Fifa to reimburse us," said stadium director Winfried Lonzen. "But now, we are going to preserve this door deformed by a kick from one of the greatest footballers."
-From AFP

And people are rating the chances that David Beckham will vomit again after World Cup matches. Odds are being offered by bookmakers.

How interesting the World Cup is. Haha.

I received an sms while i was studying my organic chem.

+659xxxxxxx
24/06/06 12:23
Come back to ahs and buy lots of 50th anniversary dinner and concert tickets, leh!

Because I lost all the contacts the other time I went to repair my phone, so i replied [below is my "sent messages" folder. The words behind were meant to make it less impolite.]:
+659xxxxxxx
24/06/06 12:32
Sorry u are? Stil got sell ah? Both concert n dinner tickets?

The reply I got:
+659xxxxxxx
24/06/06 12:34
I'm ms chan! Pls get comp club members to support.

!!!! [I swear that was the first time I received an sms from her with a word "leh!" inside. I was expecting a friend or junior!]

So my reply[I haven't store her contact yet, below is "sent messages" folder]:
+659xxxxxxx
24/06/06 12:44
Oh. Haha tt sounds abit unlike u. R tickets sales poor?

Her reply:
+659xxxxxxx
24/06/06 12:51
U alumni's response is quite disappointing, leh.

And so, I took the initiative to encourage people to go, by taking out some time to type this. Haha.

"I didn't want to blog until the common test, .." (I realised I didn't type the word "after" haha) but I seem to be contradicting myself.

I read a forum letter recently, and subsequently listened to mrbrown's podcast, on this very suay guy who received a summons letter from the Media Development Authority (read: government), apparently for not paying broadcasting licensing fees.

The only problem is that he does not even have a television set at home.

Sounds like the matter is solved? No! He still had to pay the fine! Because he did not tell the authority that he does not have a television set!

I marvel at the intelligence of the government. =x

Recently there has been alot of discussions on the issue of English standards in Singapore.

http://blog.vjc.sg/2006/06/19/because-our-native-tongue-is-singaporean/

This is lengthy, but a good read. Let me grab a couple of quotes from it which i liked.

"Every couple of years or so, the education ministry comes up with a press release highlighting yet another problem with our education system. My question is this: If you have so many problems, maybe the problem lies with you?"

"Everytime there’s an issue with education, I barely see a student write anything in the Forum. It’s always people who have kids (parents know close to nothing about the system, by the way), or educators (who are often the problem anyway), or just someone with an opinion (oh please, who doesn’t)."

I have read countless forum letters in the newspapers, on educators and the general public who came up with all kinds of suggestions that they think can increase the standards of English.

I remembered one letter was about introducing English and Higher English, similar to our Mother Tongue and Higher Mother Tongue, where more capable students can study literature. Well I wonder if that was a good way, because it is, then we didn't had to reform our Mother Tongue syllabus.

Back to my friend's article, I agree that our education is too tied up with our economy. Since young we have been brainwashed to memorise those F! formulas and theories, so that we can do well for examinations, get into top schools, get a good degree, so that we can get a good job that earn us good money.

That made sense, because all this money has translated into the comfortable homes, stable supplies of food, and fine security we have today. But if education is seen as preparing ourselves for a "prosperous future", all the passion to gain knowledge, is any in the first place, will be killed.

The main point of the article is that passion is the way to solve the countless problems that keep popping up. I myself put that into action by substituting Biology for Computing haha. Passion often can be a huge driving force in getting things done. I think one will not anything difficult if he has the passion to learn.

Unfortunately, now that our education is so tied up with economy, even passion cannot let one go far. Everything appears easier said than done.

I don't study economics, so I don't know anything about money. But still, I dislike the way money is controlling people.

Someone wrote into today's newspapers about not having enough local content in our electronic media, which contributes to the drop in English standards and also the lack of national identity (an issue brought up recently). I'm not going much into this today, but I thought, no one is supporting these local content, what's the use of putting so much of that into our media?

Singaporeans are full of praises for Korean and Japanese dramas [soccer], and Taiwanese variety shows [European soccer leagues], but there is no lack of criticism when it comes to local content [soccer], no matter how much hard work the producers [players] put in.

I didn't want to blog until the common test, but I decided to after reading a very interesting article.

Flipping through the Chinese newspapers Lian He Zao Bao today I saw this huge page on AHS's 50th anniversary, which is coming up next month.

The article said that the school is going to pay a special tribute to our long-time school servant, Mr Hassan, and the entire article was about him. True to what the article said, everyone in AHS knows Hassan. But, at least for me, my knowledge about him is limited to just the facts that he is our long-time school servant, and that he lived in our school. This article truly enlightened me and made me understand more about him.

He has worked in AHS for a grand total of 48 years (that's almost half a century!), from a young man of 20 years old to an elderly of 68 years today, having served six principals. He is so loyal to AHS, he named his three sons such that their names take on the three alphabets A, H, and S! OMFG! In fact I didn't know he was married with children. =x

And so, while I know that he lived in AHS, I didn't know his entire family lived in AHS too, until 8 years ago when they moved out. Also, I didn't know that he was in charge of printing the examination papers!

Spending almost his entire life working for AHS, I respect Mr Hassan. Deep from my heart.

The article also gave some information on AHS's past, like that fact that Lee Kong Chian's grandchildren studied at AHS. I had expected them to study at schools like HCI.

AHS is organising a whole lot of activities for this anniversary, and I think I shall be going, although it will cost $50. That's ok I guess, given that its a twice in a lifetime (I have to wait another 50 years for another event similar like this!) chance. Anyway, I've saved some money from not going to Prom Night!

While AHS is not as established as VS, or as famous and popular as DHS, AHS is unique in itself, with its own characteristics and features that cannot be found in other schools. This article brought out that little bit of sense of loyalty that still remained in me.

The AHS Alumni Website

Its 6.20am in the morning and I'm here blogging. Haha. I couldn't get back to sleep after waking up so I decided to come up here to check the World Cup scores.

So yesterday was my turn to go to CMPB for my NS medical checkup. Everything was fine, surprisingly, all the way until Station 6. Apparently my heart rate is too high, and so I have to go back in one month's time to have my ECG retaken again. Wtf.
I guess I was too nervous or something, being in a new place with strangers everyone, so my heart beat abit faster. Haix.

Sian.

The checkup process was very neat despite the large numbers of people there. Go to one station, done the stuff there, and go to the next one, check, and next one. Perhaps that's the characteristic of the military; everything follows a procedure.

Anyway, the doctor's attempt to distract me from the blood drawing was not helpful. At. All. He was asking me whethe I had a girlfriend or not, and talked about giving excuses about not finding a gf etc. I couldn't understand what he was saying, so I gave him crap answers, making me look like a fool. He returned me crap replies and continued talking crap, making him look like a fool, because no one in the room understood what he was talking about. =x

So far the World Cup hasn't brought me much surprise except for the Australia-Japan match. But lately i realise that there is alot of thrill in supporting the 'minority' teams, especially if they managed to score one against the better teams and put a face of horror on their faces and slience in the crowd. Haha. I first realised this when I decided to support Togo when Korea played a disappointing first half. Even in the second half, I don't find Korea's goals as exciting as Togo's. Lol.

So now, adding to my list of supported teams, namely Singapore, Brazil, Netherlands and Argentina, I shall add Togo too! I don't think I get to watch any more group stage matches, but next time if I see the 'minority' teams performing better than the 'better' teams, I won't hestitate to support them. Lol.

The excitement of group matches, in my opinion, is when the final matches are being played. There we can see all the 'Country X must beat Country Y and hope Country Z loses. Country Z just needs a draw with Country W and they have not lost in the past 38 years' conditions. This is also the time where we can see countries cheating to get through to the next round. Example? Denmark vs Sweden during Euro 2004.

I find it weird as to why the news does not have extensive reporting on the World Cup 2006. I still remembered Euro 2004 coverage was very extensive, with both stations having dedicated sports reporters and an entire section of news on the competition alone. Now? News merely showed match replays of the goals and near-miss.

The start of common test is coming closer and closer and I'm still having difficulty settling down to work. Argh.

The only bad thing about blogging so early is that I have to type softer on the keyboard. Otherwise in the dead silence of the morning I can easily wake the whole family up.

After spending a farking bloody long time on the computer, I finally got my Brother MFC-210C to work with Fedora Core! It can now print and scan on the Linux! =D

Looking at the new iCOMP website that the juniors have created, I will say no doubt its one of the best ones I see these days.

If only iCOMP remains as the Internet and Computing Club and not what Infocomm Club that the IDA wants us to call ourselves.

If only AHS's Computer Club was half as good as iCOMP.

If only I was half as good as the iCOMP president.

Finally after three weeks of stay at the repair shop, my Z520i is back in my hands, half recovered.

Apparently they only repaired my screen, which took up the three weeks because they didnt have stock for the cable inside the phone, and had to wait for the cable to come. I had expected them to rewrite the phone software, but no they kept it intact. So only half of the problems were solved.

Handphone numbers in my phone appeared as numbers and not as the corresponding names, even when the contacts existed. I solve the problem by re-saving all the contacts. Then I cannot run any of my Java applications, slapping an "Application error" alert in my face when I accessed them. The default theme is "corrupted", so I have to settle for a "Mistic" theme that sets an almost white-coloured background. Nothing special, except that the font colour is white too. And more and more images are beginning to disappear, in their places either a cartoon of a picture broken into two, or simply just black and nothing else.

I'm not complaining or something; I still like Sony Ericsson and the Z520i alot, but I just felt that quality control should have been better than expected. Of couuse it may not be their fault, perhaps it was me who didn't take good care of it. Then again, shouldn't it be able to withstand mild shock or mishandle?

I spent a little time last night trying to find out if there is any way possible I can replace the phone software myself, but my efforts were in vain. I either write my own O.O ,which is physically(referring to me and the phone's 16mb of memory) and mentally impossible, or stick with it until the end of the year. The latter seems easier, but my hands are itchy. Haha.

And so, the World Cup is here. The tournament for the world's most popular sport has attracted billions of people around the world, fans and non-fans, to catch "22 men chasing a ball" and watch them kiss their rings or take off their shirts (and robot dance haha) when they manage to score.

I still remember the World Cup four years ago threw up plenty of surprises. I myself watched France fall to Senegal, which threw my predictions totally off, and Ronaldino's shocking but cunning free kick against England. Four years on, its now almost at the other side of the globe, and thanks to my Internet Service Provider I can only watch four matches. Perhaps a little consolation is that the important matches only come after common test.

I did not waste my time watching the opening match though, seeing the ball hitting the nets six times. Costa Rica's both goals looked suspiciously off-side, but never mind haha.

My take? I support Brazil, Argentina and the Netherlands, for no particular reason at all. Any of them win will make me happy, but I pick Singapore Brazil.

Yesterday I went on a little "military" journey.

Morning was spent at a DSTA building at the Science Park. The DSTA people gave us a talk on the DSTA scholarship, which was exactly the same as the one I heard when they came to VJC for scholarship talk. There were also talks by two men, one navy guy who briefly told us some of the technologies in the new shealth frigates Singapore recently got. The other was a middle-aged guy who deals with electromagnetics at DSO.

After lunch buses took us to the SAF Centre of Military Experimentation, and that's where the excitement began. Located inside a camp, its a small building which consists of three labs which they supposedly try out new technologies to help them fight better battles.

There is this lab up on the 2nd storey which looks like some LAN game centre/underground hacking centre. There are computers all over the place running powerful workstations, some complete with joysticks that simulate fighter jets and choppers and tanks, all fighting out in one same battlefield that can be seen and tracked on other computers. Located in a corner is a cluster of computers where commercial off-the-shelf software like Black Hawk Down and Counterstrike and Generals and Battlefield, among others, were installed for play.

Besides gaming there are also terminals where people develop these simulators. When I was there I saw at least two female programmers who were, I think, doing some debugging work on Visual Studio. Female hard-core programmers. Haha.

Down at the first level there was this mock command post where there are huge touchscreens with numerous other lcd screens which supposedly allows commanders to transmit information to foot soldiers in the field. The hosts explained some of their technologies to us, like tablet PCs and PDAs running 3D maps of Singapore on Google Earth-like software, and also their private search engine which they use to hunt out terrorists. Maybe they will use that to hunt this blog down huh? Haha.

Overall I find this trip very informative and fun, especially the SCME tour. This lab, having just set up not too long ago, is not something I see in news often, so through this tour I learnt more about real cool place. Although a little part of me prefers to be carrying a gun and running out in the field, I don't mind working in this lab too, if I get a chance to go in the first place.